Special?
by Meridian
Summary: St. John muses about the nature of being 'special' and his life at large. PG-13 for language and cynicism.
1. Alpha Commencement

Born out of stress, a St. John obsession, and insomnia – expanded from a much shorter version with the same title. The St. John in here is the same one written in _Only Human_; his character history was influenced by Jenn and is a mix of movie-verse and the comics. Highly cynical.

First attempt at _X-Men_ fanfic. Read & review, please ...

* * *

"You're special." That's what he told you when you first came to the school, you were special, you were unique, you were the next step of evolution. You were abnormal, but you somehow weren't.

Different. But not-different.

You didn't answer at first. You just held on tight to your lighter and tried to think about anything but the smell of burning flesh. You had to wonder if he'd ever been punched by norms for three hours straight or been dumped into a foreign country while his parents took off on the quickest flight out of the hemisphere, all because his genes had had one twisted sense of humor and chosen to manifest over summer vacation. You even thought about asking him if he'd ever known what it was like to be hungry and starving and eating out of the garbage because there was nowhere else to get any food.

You'd been thirteen six months before and you knew what it felt like to have fire warm against your skin and your back slammed up against a wall while people screamed at you that you were a freak. And you knew, damnit, _knew_ what it felt like to have a hand around your throat suddenly let go as you convulsively flicked your lighter in an attempt to produce flame and then finally get a spark and let fire go straight for that guy's throat. And maybe that guy'd spent a week in the hospital with third-degree burns, but you really could have cared less because his buddies had found you long before the police could. And when they finally found you, they knew enough then to be scared of you just like all the other normals were and get that lighter out of your mutie hand before beating the crap out of you.

But he was old and you were young and he had to know better, right? And he watched you with those blue eyes and that heartbreaking amount of trust and he smiled and gave you his platitudes about how life would be better now and mutants and humans could live together in tandem with each other. You didn't have to be alone anymore, he said, and you speculated about those other mutants he thought were the same. The boy he'd assigned as your roommate with his cryokinesis and the kids who'd looked at you when he had brought you in the door of his school. They were clean and young and they smiled at you with their straight white teeth and they didn't know anything about blood and pain and being scared to death and running for so long ... they didn't know anything. Not a thing in the world.

So he told you you were special. And you looked at him with his bald head and pale skin and his confident smile and wheelchair. You wondered about him and how he could know so much and so little all at the same time and your fingers snapped the cap of your lighter on and off and on and off and on again in neat arcs of wariness and remembered pain. But he had that light of utter _ belief_ in his eyes, so you didn't do anything but nod and smile.

"Sure. Special."


	2. Beta Self Deception

Again, born out of massive stress and insomnia. _Special?_ was only supposed to be a one-shot 'fic, but ... ^_^;; Vaguely pertains to _Only Human_ ficverse as stated before, if I ever get that particular work done and posted.

Critique, please -- I'm seriously thinking about expanding this into a short work of monologues from St. John's POV over the course of his stay at the Mansion.

* * *

There are some days you can't stand them.

You like them most of the time: Bobby and Jubes and Kitty and Doug and Artie and all the rest, and yeah, Scooter's okay, and so're Jean and the prof. They're not bad people, not really, and six days out of seven, you can smile along with everything they say and nod to their inanities and their pure belief in the good of humanity and Martin Luther King quotes because they're your _family_.

Then there's that one day a week that their banalities drive you out. of. your. fucking. mind.

You've learned to spot those days before they can ever really unfurl, sit upright in bed at two in the goddamned morning, roll fluidly out of bed and struggle into jeans and a T-shirt and make it to the doorway before your dreams and memories and past can try to catch up with you. The hardwood floors are cold against your feet -- you have a higher body temperature than most, so the floors're always cold and always will be -- but there's a part of your brain that believes they're so much colder on those mornings.

_(And then there's another part of your brain that you haven't thought with for over three years that takes that bit of information and spins it out to its abstract conclusion. Coldness equaling repression equaling smotheringstrangling_something_ --)_

_(But you don't let that part of your brain think. That's the part of you that won that essay competition when you were twelve, the part of you that landed you here in the fucking States. Sure, you can read and sure, you're actually a good writer and you're pretty damn smart, though you like to pretend otherwise. You know how to play the piano, and there was a point in your life when you actually listened to decent music, not the inane pop and howling rock you listen to now just because Bobby and Jamie do. But of course, that was then and this is now, and you keep this part of yourself locked up nice and safe with the same vicious control you keep over everything else about you. Your name is John now, sometimes referred to as Johnny, and you haven't been St. John for so long it almost doesn't hurt anymore.)_

So you struggle out of bed those mornings, and you're not even sure what it is you're running from. Sometimes you go down to the lower levels and play with fire and try to lose yourself in your dragons and horsemen and falcons and every other kind of creation you can make with your flames. But then usually you start thinking of fourth degree burns -- you never even knew those things existed until you turned twelve -- never had to -- and then you can't think about anything but that, then, and gauzy bandages that burn almost as quickly as flesh can.

Or you climb out your window and sit on the rooftop and smoke. You're too young to smoke, Scooter says, just like you're too young to drink but you're also too young to know what it feels like to cradle a broken left arm or be spat at by norms or to know what death really _does_ look like. So you smoke and you drink and you swear and what the fuck does it really matter?

Then you skip class because you spent all night and most of the day sitting up on the roof. And then they come looking for you later on and then you smile charmingly at them and talk about how you just didn't feel like snoring through another one of Jean's lectures on stoichiometry, and then Scooter gives you a reproving look and Jean tells you she's disappointed in you and then they give you extra Danger Room sessions or whatever. And you nod like this actually means something to you, and you hang your head and you go out into the hallway and see Bobby and he drags you off to go play video games with him and you play those games dutifully and get Mario to rescue Princess what's-her-name from evil Bowser, wow, no blood, no nothing, just jumping on the little mushroom dudes. And you even manage excitement when you beat Bobby, though there's still that tiny part of you at the very back of your mind that honestly could care less.

You didn't run when you first came here. You actually stayed in bed during those long mornings and listened to the clock tick away the seconds until it was six, just like a normal person. But you were edgy all those days, you snarled at people and it _hurt _when you saw the look in their eyes, the surprise, the slight pain, the disappointment. You wanted them to fix you, and they had no idea that you needed to be fixed, much less any idea of how to help you. If you had said anything, they would have told you to talk to the professor, and would it have made any difference, really? To see him, brain wiped all clean now, no bad thoughts?

No. Your memories are who you are, and this is who you are and what you are. Things are better now, really, they're different than they were before. You're tired of running, and you don't have to run here. You don't have to reflexively keep your back to the wall every time you walk into a new room. There's really no reason why it should annoy you so goddamn much when Scooter looks you in the eye and tries to pat you on the back and say he understands how you feel, he really does, because you're safe now, aren't you?

This is your home. The only one you've got now. You need them -- they hold you together and you can even be normal now, joke around with Jamie and crack dirty jokes with Bobby and flirt with Kitty -- you need them. You even like to pretend they need you.

Even if that 'you' really isn't you at all.


End file.
